How Biden navigated pandemic politics to win the White House
“It was a hard call,” said Jake Sullivan, a senior Biden adviser. He held large-scale events on the South Lawn of the White House, including the introduction of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett less than a week before his diagnosis. After three nights in the hospital, Trump, who was still infectious, staged a dramatic return to the White House. ___Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders knew his White House ambitions were over. Trump had been roundly criticized after mostly peaceful protesters were forcibly removed from a street near the White House in June.
1963 church bombing survivor seeks apology, restitution
More than a dozen sticks of dynamite planted by Ku Klux Klansmen exploded at a Birmingham church in 1963, killing four Black girls. George Wallace, at the time encouraged the racial violence that led to one of the most infamous acts of the civil rights era. The blast killed Denise McNair, 11, and three 14-year-olds: Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie Mae Collins, who was Rudolph’s sister. Rudolph recalled that she and her sister had gone to the washroom to freshen up after walking to church. After the bombing, Rudolph for years lived anonymously.
'Forrest Gump' author Winston Groom dead at 77
FAIRHOPE, Ala. – Winston Groom, the writer whose novel “Forrest Gump” was made into a six-Oscar winning 1994 movie that became a soaring pop cultural phenomenon, has died at age 77. “While he will be remembered for creating Forrest Gump, Winston Groom was a talented journalist & noted author of American history. “It touched a nerve,” Groom told the Tuscaloosa News in 2014. They “took some of the rough edges off,” Groom told the New York Times in 1994. Groom got $350,000 for the rights to “Forrest Gump” plus 3 percent of the net profit of the movie.
At RNC, GOP echoes racial code of Nixon's 1968 campaign
It came to be known as Nixon's Southern strategy: a campaign that used fear of crime and lawlessness to tap into white Southern voters opposition to racial integration and equality without using overtly racist language. Nixon had to peel away some Southern white voters from Wallace without alienating voters in other regions. As president, Trump denigrated as animals some immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally. Trump's take on the Southern strategy isn't necessarily aimed at Southern voters. His targets are more likely working-class white voters in battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin, Abramowitz said.
Democrats, Biden look to accelerate Southern political shift
Now, during a national reckoning on racism, Democratic Party leaders want those symbolic changes to become part of a fundamental shift at the ballot box. North Carolina, Georgia, Texas these are becoming real two-party states, said Republican pollster Brent Buchanan, whose firm, Cygnal, aides GOP campaigns across the country. Senate contests in South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi could be much closer than typical statewide races in those Deep South states. Obama won North Carolina and Virginia in 2008, leaning more heavily on diverse cities and battleground suburbs. In South Carolina, Harrison sees progress, even as more tangible policy fights remain.
Trumps tweet about rioters echoes 1960s Miami police chief
CHICAGO President Donald Trump's tweeted warning Friday amid unrest in Minneapolis that when the looting starts, the shooting starts echoes the language of a Miami police chief in 1967 who made clear his distaste for civil rights activists and his belief that violent protests should be met with deadly force. The language has also been attributed to segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace in a 1968 campaign speech in Pittsburgh. About 13 hours after his provocative tweet, he took to Twitter again to claim that he wasnt suggesting the shooting of rioters. Instead, he said he was referring to gun violence that has been spurred by the unrest. Ive let the word filter down: When the looting starts, the shooting starts.The Rev.